The present invention generally relates to novel tamper-evident, child-resistant blister packages for medicaments and non-medicaments.
It is desirable for manufacturers of products to provide tamper-evident packaging for their products which will provide a clear indication when the packaging has been subject to tampering, and which is highly resistant to opening by children, but which, at the same time, is sufficiently easy for the average unimpaired consumer to open.
One of the problems facing parents today is their responsibility of keeping medications and other dangerous and/or small articles beyond the reach of their young children. Young children do not have the ability to recognize the risk involved in consuming prescribed or over-the-counter medication and other dangerous and/or small articles. Because of this fact, there is an important need for a package from which these items are readily accessible to an unimpaired adult, but are not accessible to a young child or impaired adult.
In past years, a trend in the packaging of medication and other dangerous and/or small articles has been to provide packages which will be safe, even if found by young children. Most developments in the "child-proofing" line have been directed to the improvement in pill bottles. In this regard, safety caps have been devised which require a certain series of pushes and turns in order to open the bottle. However, there has been less development in the area of "childproofed," press-type blister packages with which this invention is concerned.
Blister packaging has become popular in recent years, not only for medicaments in capsule, lozenge or pill form, but also for small automotive parts, household articles, and miscellaneous hardware.
Blister packages are generally made up of a first sheet, typically a clear, preformed polyvinyl chloride or polystyrene with flexible bubbles which form separate compartments for one or more pills, and a second, rupturable sheet material, such as an aluminum foil or paper sheet, which has been attached to the first sheet. The second sheet is attached to the first sheet by heat-sealing, solvent welding, gluing, or otherwise. The article contained in the package may be removed from the blister compartment by pressing on the flexible blister which, in turn, forces the tablet against the second sheet, rupturing the second sheet, and ejecting the article.
Because the contents of blister packages are generally visible, and are often brightly colored, young children are attracted to the contents of these packages, with a substantial risk of injury and/or death if they succeed in opening such packages and ingesting their contents. Accordingly, it is important to "childproof" such packages by rendering these packages too difficult to open for children too young to realize the potential hazard in doing so but, at the same time, user friendly for adult users of the various articles contained in the packages.
The tamper-evident, child-resistant blister packages of the invention for medicaments and non-medicaments are structurally different from child-resistant packaging described in the art.